Mr Cuomo alleges that E&Y committed fraud by signing off on an accounting manoeuvre used by Lehman, known as Repo 105. Under this scheme, towards the end of each quarter Lehman temporarily swapped some of its assets for cash with another bank or investor, but booked this as if it were a permanent sale of the assets. By doing this, it and the other banks that used this manoeuvre in the run-up to the credit crunch made themselves look less indebted in their quarterly results.